Waste incinerator



E3. MILLE R Dec. 12, 1967 WASTE INGINEBATOF;

F'iled Feb. F17, 1964 INVENTOR Bernard Miller v ll 17 ATTORNEY UnitedStates Patent 3,357,376 WASTE INCENERATOR Bernard Miller, Glenshaw, Pa.,assignor to Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pa., acorporation of Pennsylvania Filed Feb. 27, 1964, Ser. No. 347,886 4Claims. (Cl. 110-8) This invention relates to means for disposing ofoxidizable and other waste materials, such as trash, garbage andmaterial ordinarily gathered and set aside for collection, and moreparticularly to the reduction of this material to clean and odorless gaswith a minimum of ash.

Appliances known as incinerators for the disposal of waste by burningare conventional, but these are generally fired by gas and requiresubstantial elaborate installation arrangements including hot gasdisposal means, such as chimneys. In accordance with the presentinvention, the device is electrical and may be housed as a unit placedamong other conventional household units, such as clothes washers andclothes dryers, and requires no more hot gas disposal means than a pieceof plastic tubing such as that required by clothes dryers, and that isneeded more to avoid overheating the room in which the disposer isinstalled than for any other reason, for the gaseous prodnot ofcombustion coming from the present device is a clear odorless gas lessthan 200 F. in temperature.

The present invention has particular utility in connection with acombustion chamber, in which oxidizable material is used as one wallthereof, and which is provided with electrical means installed thereinto induce combustion of this material. A supply of fresh air is pipedinto the combustion chamber to maintain combustion at the face of themass of material and a vent is provided to exhaust the chamber of theproducts of combustion. A temperature, within this chamber, suflicientlyhigh to reduce these products of combustion to a colorless and odorlessgas, is maintained and this gas is vented, cooled, partly by dilutionwith cool air, and expelled in the same manner as the heated air of theconventional clothes dryer. While an after burner, as in conventionalincinerators, could be provided for burning smoke and other gasesexternally of the combustion chamber, for purpose of efiiciency allcombustion is made to take place Within the combustion chamber where atemperature to eliminate smoke and odor is maintained, and hence noafterburner is needed. By way of example, a temperature of 1500 F. hasbeen found to be suflicient to eliminate smoke and odor.

Combustion apparatus of the type just described briefly is the subjectmatter of copending application Ser. No. 329,044, filed Dec. 9, 1963 andnow Patent No. 3,313,253, for Waste Disposer, in the name of Franklin S.Malick, and assigned to the assignee of the present application.

A feature of the present invention is means to form the waste materialinto a compact and imporous plug and to confine the combustion thereofto the one face of the plug which acts as one wall of the combustionchamber. For this purpose a means to apply pressure to the top of themass of waste material in the trash bin is provided. As shown herein,this means comprises an air tight bag of rubberized material which maybe inflated from some conventional source of air or liquid pressure. Theexpansion of this bag acts as a bellows or as a piston means to crushand compact the waste material and to force the compacted plug alwaystoward the combusti-on chamber. This bag must be air tight so that noair will be provided at the top or back of the plug to sustain unwantedcombustion at any point of the plug except the bottom or end facethereof which forms the one wall of the combustion chamber. Hence theplug becomes a heat insulator, since combustion thereof is held to theend face and suflicient heat cannot reach the pressure bag to damage it.

The inflatable bag is fixed to a cover for the said trash bin so that itmay be deflated and the cover removed to charge the trash bin with morewaste. Gasket means must be provided along with clamping means to renderthe trash bin air tight before the bag is again inflated.

Another feature of the invention is the arrangement whereby the trashbin may be charged while the device is in operation. With the trash binsurmounting the combustion chamber and the plug of compacted material,in itself imporous, forming a seal at the one face of the combustionchamber, the compacting bag may be deflated and the cover removed for ashort period of time without having combustion creep up along the sidesof the bin. Expressed in another manner, the rate at which ignitionalong the edges of the plug next to the walls of the trash bin mighttake place would be so very slow that suflicient time is available torecharge the trash bin in comfort by the operator and without danger ofsustaining a burn.

Another feature of the invention is the provision of a completely airtight trash bin as well as an air tight inflatable pressure bag withinsuch bin, whereby any source of air behind the burning plug ofoxidizable material is avoided.

Other features of the invention will appear hereinafter.

The drawing consists of a single sheet having a single figure, which isa diagrammatic view, generally in cross section, showing the variouscomponents of the invention and of the combustion apparatus with whichthey may be utilized.

A combustion chamber 1 is fashioned substantially of insulating material2. The top of this component is open so that it may register with theopen bottom of the sheet metal trash bin 3. At the junction of thecombustion chamber 1 and the trash bin 3, there is located a grill orgrid consisting of a plurality of sheathed resistance heating elements4, 5, 6 and so on, so that when oxidizable material 7 is placed in thistrash bin, such grid acts as a waste-movement-restricting means whichhalts downward movement of such material under action of the pressurebag to result in its compaction with a leading face at this point.Placed within the trash bin 3 is an inflatable bag 8. When a gasket orseal 9 is placed over the edge of the bag 8 and a cover 10 clampedthereover, the trash bin becomes air tight so that no air can movedownwardly through the material 7. A pipe 11 supplies air under pressurewhereby the bag 8 is inflated and the material 7 is compacted into animporous mass which through distillation and carbonization at the lowerface thereof becomes even more impermeable. The compacted mass ofmaterial therefore becomes a heat insulator to protect the bag 8, shownfully extended in the drawing, and to keep the lower portion of thetrash bin cool so that this does not become a personal or a fire hazard.

The reduction of this material to a clear and odorless gas isaccomplished by combustion only over the lower face of this plug ofmaterial. The electrical means, herein shown as sheathed resistanceheaters 4, 5 and 6, is used to ignite the face of the plug and tomaintain the temperature necessary for the reduction of the material toa clear and odorless gas when the combustion fails to provide enoughheat, as would be the case with wet material. It may be noted that thistemperature is substantially 1500" F. After the lower face of thecompacted material has been ignited, combustion is maintained by thesupply of oxygen in the form of fresh air to the pipe 12 and theelectrical heaters are thereafter used only if the temperature dropsbelow 1500 F.

The gaseous product of combustion is exhausted from the combustionchamber 1 through a pipe 13, insulated to a point where the gas iscooled by admission of diluted cool air from the source and thenceexhausted by the fan 16 through the ducts 14 and 17. A number of valves18, 19, 20, 21 and 22are provided to seal off all air from thecombustion chamber so that the fire may be extinguished when desired.For efl'icient and economical operation, all combustion should takeplace within the combustion chamber so that, whereas afterburner meansmight be placed Within the insulated duct 13 as inconventional gas firedincinerators, the present electrical incinerator is adjusted to insurecomplete combustion within the chamber 1 with the flow of only inert gasthrough the duct 13. It should also be noted that the fresh air,

through the inlet pipe 12 mixes with the gas distilled from the face ofthe material 17 within the combustion chamber 1 and the heat generatedby this combustion is mostly conveyed to thematerial being reduced byradiation rather than by convection. It is intended that the incomingfresh air shall create turbulence Within the combustion chamber 1without being directed against the bottom of the plug, thereby avoidingburning holes deep into the plug of material. It is intended thatcombustion over only the face of the material at the junction of thecombustion chamber and the trash bin shall take place.

It should be noted that at the temperature maintained in the combustionchamber, the combustible material is almost completely reduced so that aminimum of ash is produced. This may be periodically removed by anyconventional means. A pipe 21, shown herein, may be used to flow waterinto the combustion chamber so that such ash may be flushed down a drain23.

It may further be noted that the exhaust gas is generally less than 200temperature so that the exhaust duct 17 may be similar in constructionto the exhaust means conventionally used for household clothes dryers.

While this invention has been shown in but one form, it will be apparentthat it is not so limited but is susceptible of changes and variationswithout departing from the scope of the attached claims.

I claim as my invention:

1. In apparatus for reducing ordinary combustible. waste to a smokelessand odorless gas and ash with no combustibles remaining, and including acombustion chamber: a waste material storage bin having an outletopening directly into said combustion chamber, said bin having an inletfor accepting loose waste material while its outlet remains opendirectly to said combustion chamber, means in said bin for compactingsaid loose waste material into an imporous mass and for advancing saidmass to said combustion chamber for burning, the lastmentioned meanscomprising an inflatable member, and means for introducing compressedfluid for inflating said member.

2. In apparatus for reducing ordinary combustible wastes to a smokelessand odorless gas and ash with no combustibles remaining, comprising acombustion chamber surmounted by a waste material storage bin openableto accept loose waste material While surmounting said combustion chamberand means in said bin for compacting said loose Waste material into animporous compacted mass and for forcing such compacted mass of materialtoward said combustion chamber: said last means consisting of aninflatable means, a means for introducing compressed fluid for inflatingsaid inflatable means, and restricting means for halting said waste soas to become compacted with a bottom face forming the top Wall of saidcombustion chamber.

3. An incinerator device, comprising a combustion chamber, a wastematerial storage bin surmounting said combustion chamber and open at itsbottom thereto, closure means at the top of said bin operable forintroducing loose waste material into said bin While so surmounting saidcombustion chamber, an inflatable bag in said bin cooperable with thewalls thereof and with said closure means for compacting said loosewaste material into an imporous mass and for forcing said imporous massof waste material toward said combustion chamber, restricting means forhalting advancement of said imporous mass so as to have only a leadingface exposed to said combustion chamber, means for raising thetemperature of the gas within said combustion chamber independently ofcombustion of said compacted mass, means to supply air to saidcombustion chamber to maintain combustion of said face, and means forexhausting the products of combustion from said combustion chamber.

4. A waste incinerator device, comprising a combustion chamber, a wastematerial storage bin open at its bottom to the top of said combustionchamber and openable at its top to accept loose waste material while itsbottom is open to said combustion chamber, an imporous inflatable bag insaid bin extendable toward said bottom to deliver a force to the top ofany waste material stored therein, the fully-extended position of saidbag being spacedapart from said bottom, and waste material restrictingmeans for resisting movement of waste to result in its compaction bysaid bag with a leading face forming an imporous wall at said combustionchamber.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 214,799 4/1879 Wood l26-223224,683 2/1880 Harper 126-223 248,391 10/1881 Bann 126223 597,716 1/1898Hwass 6821 2,693,774 11/1954 Knowles 110-18 2,932,713 4/1960 Powersl1018 2,979,897 4/1961 Studhalter 15850.1 X 3,133,492 5/1964 Czulak etal. 6821 XR FREDERICK L. MATIESON, JR., Primary Examiner.

H. B. RAMEY, Assistant Examiner.

1. IN APPARATUS FOR REDUCING ORDINARY COMBUSTIBLE WASTE TO A SMOKELESSAND ODORLESS GAS AND ASH WITH NO COMBUSTIBLES: A WASTE MATERIAL STORAGEBUN HAVING AN OUTLET CHAMBER: A WASTE MATERIAL STORAGE BIN HAVING ANOUTLET OPENING DIRECTLY INTO SAID COMBUSTION CHAMBER, SAID BIN HAVING ANINLET FOR ACCEPTING LOOSE WASTE MATERIAL WHILE ITS OUTLET REMAINS OPENDIRECTLY TO SAID COMBUSTION CHAMBER, MEANS IN SAID BIN FOR COMPACTINGSAID LOOSE WASTE MATERIAL INTO AN IMPOROUS MASS AND FOR ADVANCING SAIDMASS TO SAID COMBUSTION CHAMBER FOR BURNING, THE LASTMENTIONED MEANSCOMPRISING AN INFLATABLE MEMBER, AND MEANS FOR INTRODUCING COMPRESSEDFLUID FOR INFLATING SAID MEMBER.